Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

The Ron Paul Coalition

Last week a poll was conducted which found that, if an election for President was currently held, Rep. Ron Paul would finish w/ 41% of the vote with Barry Hussein Sotero garnering 42% of the vote. It was a bit of a shocker to the political class (Both Republicrats and Demoicans) in America as the political class continues to seek to do all they can to marginalize the ideas of Ron Paul.

However, Ron Paul’s problems are not primarily the political class. Ron Paul’s primary problem, as was alluded to in a conversation I had this past weekend w/ Chad Degenhart, is that Paul’s coalition is fragile and one would think that a smart opposition to Paul could easily divide his movement.

After Chad made the passing observation about the fragility of Paul’s coalition I began to think about that reality. From where I sit you have Ron Paul building a coalition between people who support ordered liberty and people who support disordered liberty sharing only the common ground of opposing those who favor ordered Statist tyranny. This is not a coalition that can survive somebody coming along and pointing out that people who support ordered liberty (Jeffersonian Constitutionalism) and people who support disordered liberty (Randian libertinism) despise one another.

Allow me to give just one example. Ron Paul reveals his Randian Libertinism by supporting the idea that abortion should be an issue that the individual states decide. A Jeffersonian Constitutionalist is abhorred by such reasoning since they believe that the “Due Process clause” of the Constitution and the promise of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness requires the Federal Government to universally prohibit abortion in the nation.

Ron Paul is living the charmed life right now because people w/ very opposite convictions are coming to him and are reading him through their worldview lenses. Those who hate Statist tyranny and love ordered freedom listen to Ron Paul and hear him as a champion of their ideas. At the same time however, others who hate Statist tyranny and love disordered liberty hear him through their worldview and they think they hear somebody who favors, even if he personally does not, legalization of drugs, the legalization of prostitution, the legalization of homosexual marriages, and the legalization of every kind of disordered dysfunction that can be imagined. These two types of people should find the other type to be repulsive and yet in the Ron Paul campaign you find them working cheek by jowl in order to get Paul elected. It is quite surreal.

The odd thing about Libertarian thinking is that it can only really work in a culture where it doesn’t need to work. That is to say that Libertarian thinking, in order to be successful, requires people to be self governing according to a particular standard. If there is no shared standard as to what self governing means or looks like Objectivist Libertarianism can only lead to anarchy and chaos. However, where there exists a shared standard as to what self-governing means and looks like then a Libertarian like political philosophy can be easily embraced since there is not a need for heavy institutional controls upon a people. There is no need for the heavy institutional controls because the shared standard means that self-governing does all the controlling work.

Those who desire ordered liberty (and I am one of them) must realize that there is some heavy spade work to do before the kind of political government that Ron Paul is offering can work on a national scale. Offering people liberty only works if people are self governing. The incarceration rate, the out of wedlock pregnancies and births, the abortion rate, the billions of dollars made in the pornography industry, and a host of other indicators reveals that it has been a very long time since the citizenry of America could be fairly characterized as a self-governing people. Giving Americans Randian Libertinism at this point would be like giving a 3 year old a box full of grenades and telling them to go be free.

In order for Ron Paul’s political philosophy to work there is first a need for Reformation and awakening in the Church and in the country. And the kind of Reformation we are talking about here is not the slushy emotional experiential feelings oriented Reformation. The kind of Reformation I am talking about is the kind of Reformation that creates in people a commitment to the shared standard of God’s Law Word as the definition by which self-governing will be assessed. Until that kind of Reformation and awakening comes about all the talk about “real change” that Rep. Paul would bring is illusory.

Only a return to a Biblical Christianity that preaches Christ crucified, risen and ascended as King can provide the fertile ground out of which Jeffersonian Constitutionalism can work. Only a return to Biblical Christianity where individuals who were once dead to sin, but, by the power of God, are resurrected to walk in newness of life, can provide the backdrop against which political structures that provide real liberty make sense. Only by a apostate Western Church and lapsed Western Christians rejuvenated to embrace Biblical (pro God’s Law-Word in its third use in the public square) Christianity can the West avoid the humanist night that is currently falling upon the West. Until that kind of Christianity — the kind of Christianity that gave America her ordered liberty — is once again characteristic of us as a people, no political philosophy or candidate is going to save the day.

Good Reading Leads To Good Thinking

Religious Secularism Begins To Awaken To Its Peril

Wherein the religious fundamental Secularists realize the only way they can defeat fundamental Religions is to become more self-consciously religious and fundamentalist complete w/ a Missionary sense..

Fascinating article.

http://newhumanist.org.uk/2267/battle-of-the-babies

Teaser —

“I ask him what he thinks we should be doing about the rise of religious fundamentalism that threatens to swamp liberal enlightenment Secularism…

“It may be necessary for secular people to have slightly more children but it would be nicer if we could get fundamentalists to have fewer children.” A strangely authoritarian notion to fall from the lips of a self-confessed liberal. “Yes,” he admits, “imposing restrictions would be condemned as discriminatory. But there are carrots as well as sticks….

Another scenario he imagines in his conclusion is that secularism might start to do a better job of winning over the children of religious fundamentalism. But at the moment he sees no statistical sign of this, and he seems gloomy about the prospect. Why? “Part of my argument is that religion does provide that enchantment, that meaning and emotion, and in our current moment we lack that. This is the challenge for secularism: can it come up with such an ideology?”

To my mind this looks a worrying prospect. Counter religion by producing a new kind of secular enchantment? Doesn’t it also betray a lack of conviction about the values that underpin our current society and the appeal they might hold for anyone who comes into contact with them? In a review of Christopher Caldwell’s book on European migration, which made similar warnings to Kaufmann’s, Kenan Malik undercuts the scaremongering that so often accompanies discussion of demography by suggesting that we already have a powerful weapon against the trends, if only we could see it. “What has eroded,” he argues, “is faith in the idea that it is possible to win peoples of different backgrounds to a common set of secular, humanist, enlightened values. And that is the real problem: not immigration, nor Muslim immigration, but the lack of conviction in a progressive, secular, humanist project.”

What Kaufmann and Malik are certainly in accord on is the need to displace the multicultural “celebration of difference” model of toleration with one that contains a far more robust sense of common values and a far more stringent rejection of reactionary fundamentalism. “We need a stronger sense of liberal values,” Kaufmann told me. “We should answer back to all fundamentalisms.”

Romans 13 And The Subjection Of the State to God

Here is a link where Rushdoony does a bang up job looking at Romans 13. RJR is seeking to correct the current Christian notion that the State is to be given absolute allegiance.

http://www.chalcedon.edu/blog/2007/08/rushdoony-on-romans-13.php

Teaser –

“It should be apparent by now that Paul not only places civil government under God, but he implicitly and surely requires that civil government comply with God’s law. This is clear from Paul’s references to civil government: it is “ordained of God,” as are all things, and, like everything else in the universe, must serve God. This same verse 1 also requires everyone to be “subject unto the higher powers.” Both words, ordained and subject, have reference to a God-established order, and both every man and every ruler are placed under that order with a duty to comply to it. The declaration by “Peter and the other apostles” that “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29) applies equally to the subject and the ruler, to the state and to the citizen. There are no exemptions from God’s law.”

Rise Again, Ye Lion-Hearted

The link below gives the tune for this hymn.

http://www.lutheran-hymnal.com/online/tlh-470.mid

Rise again , ye lion-hearted, saints of early Christendom.
Whither is your strength departed, wither gone your martyrdom?
Lo, love’s light is on them, glory’s flame upon them
And their will to die doth quell, even the lord and prince of hell.

These the men by fear unshaken, facing danger dauntlessly;
These no witching lust hath taken, lust that lures to vanity.
Mid the roar and rattle of tumultuous battle
In desire they soar above all that earth would have them love.

Great of heart, they know not turning, honor, gold they laugh to scorn.
Quench desires within them burning, by no earthly passion torn.
Mid the lions’ roaring, songs of praise out poring,
Joyously they take their stand on the arena’s bloody sand.

Would to God that I might even, as the martyred saints of old,
With the helping hand of Heaven, steadfast stand in battle bold!
O my God, I pray thee, in the combat stay me.
Grant that I may ever be loyal, stanch, and true to Thee.

Rise again, ye lion-hearted, saints of modern Christendom
With lesser loves ye now be parted, Soldiers in His “age to come”
Lo, our Lord commands us, triumph’s promise is upon us
And our will to fight doth quell, even the lord and prince of hell

Wouldn’t you love to sing this in a Sunday Morning worship service?

Darwin on Race

“The more civilized, so called Caucasian races, have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.”

Charles Darwin
Letter of 03 July 1881

If racism exists you will find it in the camp of the Cultural Marxist, Evolutionary Leftist crowd where they are doing all they can to extinguish the most recent carrier race of Biblical Christianity — the Caucasian race. The reason for this attempt to extinguishing White people who belong to the Historic West is because White people remain the largest significant ethnic block that still has a memory of Biblical Christianity. The attempt to eliminate white ethnicity is the attempt to eliminate Biblical Christianity. If White ethnicity wasn’t so often associated and bound up with the remains of Biblical Christianity the other ideological special interests (Cultural Marxism, Postmodernism, Evolutionary thought, etc.) and ethnic groups who are serving as the shock troops for those ideologies (La Raza, the NAACP, LULAC) and who are seeking that elimination wouldn’t bother. If Euro-Christians are reduced to an insignificant minority w/ no voice then all other Biblical Christians, regardless of their respective ethnicity, will be forced to choose between their ethnicity — which will allow them to fit into the new social order — and their faith, which will ostracize them along with the surpassed social order that was created, supported, and maintained by Christianity as it impressed Euro-Americans.

Make no mistake about it though. The racism that is characteristic of multi-culturalism and political correctness is a racism from the left. Biblical Christians are perfectly pleased to have other Biblical Christians from other ethnicity groups join in supporting Christian social order.

Objections To Reformed (Biblical) Christianity & Response

“First of all, Bret… just because one has a disagreement as to your “covenant theology” doesn’t make them less “covered by the blood” of Jesus. According to your theology, it doesn’t matter what they believe as to “who” Jesus is, because if they are the chosen “covenant” people they have a free passage into heaven anyway… looks to me like being a “Calvinist” is just a bonus… Oh wait, Calvinists are the only ones who get into heaven, right?

I’m not arguing that you actually have to read the Bible to find out how you are to be a follower of Christ… But what you fail to realize is that Jesus taught Old Testament Scripture, and without a firm foundation in that, you are paddling with one oar in the water just going around in circles.

And yes, Jesus calls us first… but we have to be willing to pick up the phone. When you look at the story of the prodigal son, the son had to come back on his own. The father didn’t go out looking for him, but waited for him to come back. That son had to make that decision to come back. Had he not have come back, he would have remained outside his father’s house…. See More

I have given countless Scripture stating that “if a righteous man turns from his righteousness, that none of his righteousness will be remembered” Ez. 18:24 and when you sin willfully you “trample grace underfoot” and “if you sin willfully, no sacrifice for sin is left” Hebrews 10:26-31… “‘… who sins defiantly, whether native-born or alien, blasphemes YHVH, and that person must be cut off from his people. (31) Because he has despised the Lord’s word and broken his commands, that person must surely be cut off; his guilt remains on him.'” Numbers 15:30-31.

And yes, when it comes to the “idol Jesus” you refer to, He is the object of my worship as my Savior, so ya, you can call Him my idol. You on the other hand idolize your intellectualism and worship your own “ME” god, the god of your own design instead of YaHuVaH of Scripture.

You can sit perched on your little mustard tree and gaze at the centuries old olive tree that I am grafted into.

“Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off” Romans 11.”

Renee Stevens

Bret responds to these objections from Renee,

Renee,

You clearly have no idea of what you are talking about. No idea at all. Not even close.

1.) First, as to covenant theology, well, if people don’t embrace covenant theology then they are likely going to embrace a Jesus of their own making since the Bible is structured tectonically as covenant. Strip Jesus from the covenant context of the Scriptures and by default you must put Him in a context that is alien to who the Scriptures say He is.

Now, clearly, non-covenantal Christians can be saved but it will certainly be the case that their Christianity will be a blight to one degree or another upon the Christian faith while they are alive.

2.) Reformed Christians believe that the elect are chosen to believe in the Christ of the Bible. I challenge you to find a Reformed Theologian who ever taught that people can go to heaven living and dying while never knowing Jesus. Yours is a loopy accusation to try and discredit that Biblical theology which your desperately trying to stave off.

3.) Reformed Christians aren’t the only ones to get to heaven but those non-Reformed Christians who get to heaven will get their because the Reformed Jesus has saved them by the Reformed Gospel that was preached and that they embraced just enough of to be saved.

4.) The whole of Reformed theology is posited upon the Old Testament. I have no earthly idea why you would suggest otherwise.

5.) In the story of the prodigal, you’re forgetting that the prodigal was a son. The Son returned to what was always his. The prodigal son is a Parable Renee w/ only ONE overarching point. That overarching point is the willingness of God to receive repentant sinners. You are trying to turn it into a allegory. It is not an allegory Renee. There is a difference between allegory and parable. Look it up.

(See, it is these kind of mistakes on your part that end up putting your well intentioned but misguided interpretive efforts into the ditch.)

6.) When Jesus calls (internal call) His people, His people always pick up the phone. (and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed Acts 13:48). When Jesus issues the external call to those who aren’t His people they never pick up the phone because dead people can’t hear the phone ringing (John 10:26 “But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”)

7.) Ezekial 18:24 — CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT, Renee.

The book of Ezekiel as a whole speak of God’s sovereignty in salvation. Go to the chapters just before…go to Chapter 16 and see that sure destruction was upon Israel, and the Lord came by and said, “Live!” Then to 33 where your passage is repeated…then on to 34 where the Lord says that He will seek out His sheep. Then to 36 and 37 where God says I will give them a new heart not for their sakes…and 37 with the dry bones.

There is no good in proof-texting Renee, as you are doing for I suspect your simply going to do this to other passages to bend them to say what you want them too say.

Secondly, you seem to be assuming that the “he shall die” reference refers to eternal death when in point of fact the idea of dying may only refer to temporal death.

8.) Hebrews 10:26-31

First, it should be noted that Calvinists have taught that people can fall from the covenant of Grace. Noting this is important since the context of Hebrews 10:29 finds just a comparison being made between the old and renewed covenant. Here we find a lesser to greater argument. If one died without mercy for rejecting Moses’ law how much more grievous will be the penalty of one who tramples the Son of God underfoot. However, we need to hear the language of Hebrews here. In this context the hypothetical person being referred to was ‘sanctified’ (that is ‘set apart’) by the blood of the covenant. Now we must ask; ‘How is it that this person was sanctified (set apart)? The answer is by being put into the covenant. This is the same covenant that throughout the Scripture is characterized as having wheat and tares in it. Now in as much as Christ died for the Church, everyone in the Church (wheat and tares alike) can be said to have had a ‘sacrifice for sins,’ and so it is true that should the wheat, being externally but really related to the one covenant of Grace, sin willfully after receiving the knowledge of the Truth (and lots of people have a non-saving knowledge of the truth – cmp. James 2:19) there is no sacrifice for sins.

Now the reason may be asked why we read this text this way.

1.) We cannot read this passage the way that Renee desires and remain faithful to the book of Hebrews where elsewhere the perseverance of the saints is upheld by the teaching that, “Therefore Jesus is also able to save forever those who come to God through Him.” Also after Hebrews 10 we are taught that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. Now, if our faith doesn’t finish, then how can it be rightly said that Jesus is the finisher of our faith?

2.) We believe that the explanation above does honor to the covenant language of Scripture. Just as all of Israel was not of Israel, so all of the Church is not of the Church and yet, if a unregenerate person is a part of the Church then when speaking in corporate categories it is proper to say that Christ died for the Church and that includes all who are in the Church who are not of the Church. Just as on the Day of Atonement where the Sacrifice of the lamb was for all of Israel didn’t negate that ‘not all of Israel was of Israel’ so the Sacrifice of Jesus for the Church doesn’t negate that not all of the Church is of the Church. Just as there were those in the Old covenant who had a sacrifice preformed for them as being part of the covenantal whole that did not apply to them individually so there are some in the Church who had a sacrifice preformed for them as part of the covenantal whole at Calvary that does not apply to them individually. But of course we do not know who those are and so if some in our congregations were to sin willfully after they had received a knowledge of the truth we would have to warn them that there remains no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment.”

Numbers 15 works much the same way. You must simply wrap your head around the idea that the covenant has people who are only externally related to the covenant but who can genuinely said to be part of the covenant.

As for the last few paragraphs in your missive Renee … well, that is just you playing the role of the fish on the hook, thrashing about trying to avoid being reeled in. But the hook is set Renee and you are being reeled in.